Chapter 28
Standing in the middle of the dark cave, I took slow, deep breaths, completely ignoring the disgusting stench rising from the depths of the orkoid lair. Oh, how angry I was! Furious at the orkoid who had ambushed me so skillfully, at the sage Lona for her condescending mockery, and, most of all, at myself for my own carelessness.
"Thinks I can't do anything without Lona's stats? Fine. Fine! I'll show these creatures," the catgirl hissed, and in the near-complete darkness, it was as if two azure lights, burning with rage, flared up.
I found the staircase leading up to the fortress again. Obviously, if I wanted to succeed, at the very least, I'd have to deal with the orkoids in the fortress itself, but after that… heh, they'll regret ever choosing to live in a stupid cave with only one exit through the fort's hatch.
Climbing up and once again ending up in the small room cluttered with broken wooden barrels, this time I decided to examine everything more thoroughly, taking care to be as quiet as possible. At the same time, I stuffed all the planks into my inventory, making note of which ones were drier. When I had dismantled most of the boards and filled my current inventory more than halfway, I found the first thing I hadn't noticed last time: under this pile of junk was some cloth, torn in places and dirty, but still usable. Basically, just a rag, but it would make starting a fire much easier—and maybe it could help with other things too.
Pleased with my discovery, I filled my inventory without reaching the point where it would affect my mobility, then, dagger in hand, headed for the corridor out of the room.
Unlike last time, when I walked casually with no thought of danger, this time I moved slowly, trying not to make a sound and to preserve as much energy as possible for a sudden burst if necessary. With my current physical stats, I couldn't count on beating the orkoids in a direct fight; my only chance was to use my agility and aim for precise strikes—or better yet, attack them from the shadows.
Keeping as close to the wall as possible, I crept along until I reached the ill-fated corner that had spelled the end of my last attempt. Carefully, without exposing myself, I peered out and immediately spotted that same bastard, now squatting and smearing something on the wall while making strange, snorting chuckles. It was probably his version of laughter.
It was clear that, unlike last time, he had not heard me—my chance. I stepped out from behind the corner, moving toward him from behind, watching his every movement. The first few steps, he didn't even look up from his obviously fascinating task; after a couple more steps, I caught a clear view of what he was doing. Using something that looked a lot like excrement, he was surprisingly skillfully drawing a figure of a headless girl on the wall. When I was a meter from him, he suddenly raised his head and began to sniff the air—we were out of time. Abandoning stealth, I lunged at the creature and plunged my dagger into its throat, grabbing its shoulders as I did my best to lay it silently on the ground, avoiding unnecessary noise. This turned out to be harder than expected—the body, small as it was, was surprisingly heavy; and once it seemed to realize it was dying, it started to flail, trying to claw at my eyes one last time.
Once the orkoid was on the ground, I jumped back, slightly satisfied, watching as life quickly left its body along with the blood. When I was sure it was no longer able to move, I walked over and pulled the dagger from its throat. Maybe it seems silly not to have done it right away—he would have died faster—but I decided silence was more important than speed.
Leaving the corpse on the cold floor, I continued down the hallway, checking rooms for any survivors. To be honest, I was lucky—or maybe Lona felt a bit of pity for me—because, except for one room, which I quietly avoided, there were no more orkoids. That meant I only needed to make one more run and I'd be done with probably the most dangerous part of the trial.
Standing in front of the door behind which I heard strange noises, I once again took a deep breath to try and soothe my rekindled anger and keep my head cool—I'm no barbarian to think rage would help me in a fight.
When I felt calm and fully focused, I pushed the door open—it creaked loudly, just as I'd expected—and darted inside. I was expecting a quick, adrenaline-filled battle but… what I saw was nothing like I expected.
Two orkoids were standing by the wall, [censored] on a brown drawing of a naked, headless girl, completely ignoring the door's creak.
However, one of them did turn toward me, not stopping what he was doing—in fact, speeding up, and making a disgusting snort at the sight of me.
"You filthy… MONSTER!" All my earlier attempts to keep my anger in check crumbled before this new provocation, and, to the idiot orkoid's own idiotic outburst as he seemed close to climax, I buried my dagger to the hilt in his eye socket.
"BLKRII!" the other orkoid shouted. Dropping his interest in the painting and grabbing a club from the ground, he charged at me. Even worse, my dagger was stuck in the dead orkoid's skull, blade wedged in the bone, and I had neither the time nor the strength to pull it out quickly.
"Damn," I muttered, leaping away from the corpse and dodging the orkoid's awkward blow with the club—which nearly made him fall over, ending up with his back to me.
Taking advantage of his brief confusion, I took a running leap, aiming both knees at his spine—though I didn't do much damage due to my low weight, it was enough to knock him over. Then, grabbing a board from my inventory, I started furiously bashing his head—after only a few blows, it was covered in blood.
"Rraaah!" he roared, scrambling back to his feet without paying any attention to my weight, forcing me to jump off. But I didn't want to lose my advantage: discarding the board, I grabbed the rag from my inventory and threw it over his head, buying myself a few more seconds as the orkoid first swung blindly and then struggled to pull the cloth off. That gave me enough time to circle behind him and tackle him again—it even felt easier this time.
"Just die already, you beast!" This time, I pulled a piece of flint from my inventory and started striking his skull with its sharp edge, hitting the same spot over and over, the only word in my mind: "Die, die, die, DIE!"
This time, my efforts paid off—the orkoid's skull broke under the repeated blows.
"Huff… huff, finally," I panted. "Any longer, and I wouldn't have had the strength left."
I was dangerously close to what had killed Lona most often—simple exhaustion thanks to her not-so-durable body. If I hadn't killed the creature in that last push, I might have ended up like a fish on a chopping board.
Not bothering with the dust or blood, I just rolled off the orkoid's body and sprawled out on the floor, staring blankly up at the ceiling.
"What a weak body…" I groaned, still struggling to catch my breath.
Five minutes later, I finally managed to rest a little and got up off the floor. My body was still shaking from the adrenaline rush, but I couldn't afford to wait any longer—who knows if another orkoid might come up to investigate.
First, I found the rag I'd thrown earlier, then went over to the corpse with the dagger in its eye—the damn thing was stuck so firmly that I had to use all my strength to pull it out, and even then I fell right onto my butt, which did nothing for my mood. Finally, I made my way to the room with the hatch.
Everything here was just as I'd left it, the hatch still opening into darkness. Obviously, it would be useless to go down there without any light—I'd probably kill myself looking for the lower ladder. The starting area was more of a middle level, usually empty of orkoids, but it had three ladders: one going up, two going deep down into the orkoids' nest, where they lived in darkness.
Without light, descending was out of the question, and I didn't have a lamp with me—which, to be honest, was kind of stupid on Lona's part—yes, I'm talking about you, sage Lona, sending me down here without a lantern. That meant I'd have to make fire here. Luckily, there was an unlit torch on the wall, with a slightly charred cloth wrapped around the top and even a little resin left on it.
I took the torch from its holder and placed it on top of one of the few intact barrels, then took out my dagger and flint.
"Well, let's give it a shot…" Pressing the dagger's tip to the torch, I ran the sharp edge of the flint against the blade, striking sparks which fell onto the cloth wrapping. The sparks glimmered orange for a moment, then faded out, doing nothing.
"Well, I can strike sparks—that's a start," I encouraged myself and struck again with the same result.
Of course, I didn't expect things to catch right away, so I kept going. Five minutes and I was still striking, trying to light the torch, but nothing was catching. I even thought I heard Lona's mocking laughter.
"Damn it, I need something more flammable," I swore, then slumped against the wall to think.
"I've watched so many videos about survival tricks in my previous life—am I worse than a Neanderthal?" I scratched my head in annoyance before my eyes fell on my pants.
"Why not?" I took my dagger, carefully scraped at my pants, gathering some lint—which actually burns very easily.
Realizing this was a great idea, I collected a good amount of fabric fibers, then turned to the boards and scraped off shavings, planning to place them under the lint. Together, they should offer enough kindling to light the torch. In theory. So I spent half an hour making wood shavings, piled them on the torch's head, arranged the dagger nearby, then laid out lint from my pants (leaving a hole since I overdid it), and, holding my breath, struck sparks with the flint. This time, the lint caught fire immediately and started to burn; afraid to lose the flame, I cupped my hands protectively around it. It burned out quickly, but managed to set the shavings smoldering, which I fanned until they finally caught fire in earnest. Soon, even the barrel's lid caught fire—which I didn't really care about—what mattered was I had lit the torch and could begin the final step.
Holding the torch in one hand, I carefully descended the stairs to the cave below. Just as I had expected, it was empty—just two holes in the floor with ladders leading further down.
From what I remembered, the left ladder would be safest for me. It led me to a spot some distance away from the orkoids, and more importantly, there was a small side tunnel nearby where I could quietly lay out the boards and set them on fire: due to the thin wall, no one from the orkoid nest would see the fire, meaning they would suffocate from the smoke.
I decided to follow that plan, descended the left ladder, and reached a narrow space where two paths split off: the left leading straight to the orkoids, and the right—the side tunnel I needed.
Without hesitation, I entered the tunnel, and after just a few steps saw a rotting corpse on the ground—apparently a woman. After some hesitation, I decided to build my fire right over her, giving her a kind of funeral pyre.
And no, I didn't do this because stacking the boards directly on flesh made less noise. More importantly, everything seemed to be going too smoothly: I managed to arrange the pile of boards, then placed the burning torch and rag in the center—they caught fire quickly. Seeing that the fire was burning, I hurried back: quietly climbing up the first ladder, then running up the second to find myself back near the still-flaming barrel.
"BOOM!"
Suddenly, an explosion slammed me into the wall, pain shooting through my whole body—all I saw was a room covered in flame. I was burning alive.
"Hahahaha! Hilarious!" I heard Lona's ringing laughter somewhere above me. "You made it to the end only to blow yourself up! What an idiot."
When I was back in the darkness of the cave, I could still hear her infuriating laugh, but mostly I was just upset—and scared. Even though I was no longer burning, my body seemed to remember the pain, trembling involuntarily.
"Damn… Damn, damn!" I punched the cave wall three times in frustration. I had been so close—it was almost enough to cry. And the pain… now I truly understood that none of the memories I had inherited even came close to conveying what Lona had suffered. The feeling of bones breaking, skin melting, eyes bursting—from that moment, I truly cursed that I hadn't died instantly.
Once I had calmed down, I went back up the stairs and immediately shoved the barrel into my inventory, determined to find out just what had caused the explosion.
"Resin? That was a barrel of wood resin? Who the hell bothered to collect a whole barrel of that stuff?!" I hissed.
"Fine, this time I'll do it right," I said determinedly, forcefully suppressing the anger welling up inside me.
With mechanical precision, I killed the goblins above, this time making sure not to repeat the silly mistake of getting my dagger stuck, and then, five minutes later, I was in the tunnel laying boards over the girl's corpse. After flipping the resin barrel over and setting the pile on fire, I went to the fortress and calmly shut the hatch behind me to wait for the end.
With the blaze I started down there, I was sure I wouldn't have long to wait, and sure enough, about ten minutes later, I found myself in a dark void before sage Lona.
"You did it."
"Yes."
"Well, then, your reward is yours," Lona said, pushing me in the chest with her palm. After that, I lost consciousness as new memories began to flood into my mind.
As the protagonist absorbed the knowledge and memories, the sage Lona watched with interest as the girl's body began to shift, growing more mature and alluring. Yet, upon glancing at the ears, she frowned in annoyance.
"What a disgusting idea—to put cat ears where human ones should be," she snorted, walked over, and intervened in the process. Her hands glowed blue as she abruptly tore off the strange ears. But instead of blood, smooth skin grew where the ears had been, and the ears in her hands transformed into glowing orbs of light. She pressed these to the crown of the unconscious body, where a pair of cute gray cat ears matching the hair color appeared.
"Much better," sage Lona nodded before vanishing.